Daily Archives: June 26, 2012

Ohio Governor John Kasich is not exactly Mr. Popularity with his constituents these days. So what better way to shore up support than calling in a former Buckeye quarterback to become a part of his administration?

Judging from the comments I see here, David Hale’s been clearly missed as a beat writer for Georgia athletics since he took himself off to cover the Phillies. As a reader service, I thought I’d let you know he’s back covering college ball again. Unfortunately for us, it’s Florida State athletics that he’ll be reporting. For ESPN.

“We had Dustin Dewald throwing for more than 400 yards a game, and, as part-time SID, Mike had to try to get him in the newspapers,” Mumme recalled. “Mike read an article about Steve Spurrier at Duke having an offense they called ‘Air Ball,’ so Mike came to me and said, ‘We’ve got to call our offense ‘Air Raid.’ ”

“It’s those five conferences who have invested the most, have the largest stadiums, and create the television marquee. We just want to be sure we get a little more proportionate share. For the BCS to survive it’s going to take all 120 institutions. The 50 to 60 in those five conferences can’t just play each other. There has to be competition across all the conferences going forward.”

Asked if the current non-AQ conferences would continue to pool their revenue as they do under the current system, Ransdell said, “I would prefer each conference receive whatever is determined. Now that AQ has gone away, I see no reason to have a pooling or gathering of revenue.”

Delany sat between SEC commissioner Mike Slive and Scott, the Pac-10’s new commissioner. Only a few feet to Delany’s right sat Benson, but they may have been located on opposite sides of the Earth — much like their polar opposite views of the BCS.

At least on two occasions during the forum, Delany interrupted Benson to hammer his opinion home.

“The BCS has provided greater access,” Benson said. “Look at 120 schools, 11 conferences and to establish opportunities for those student-athletes. To play on the big stage, we’ve been to the big stage. …

“The problem,” Delany interrupted, “is your big stage takes away opportunities for my teams, to play on the stage they created in 1902.”

…

“If you think you can continue to push for more money, more access to the Rose Bowl, or Sugar Bowl. I have tremendous respect for Boise and TCU. … I think they are tremendous teams that can beat any team in the country on a given day. I think the only question is, ‘Does one team’s 12-0 and another team’s 12-0 equate?’ And that’s where the discussion plays out, not whether or not they’re elite teams or deserving access to the bowl system.

“I’m not sure how much more give there is in the system.”

There isn’t any. The mistake the mid-majors made was focusing on the AQ battle. The big boys just nuked that. And now it’s dawning on the mids that the real battleground is whether they’re going to be around much longer as proud members of D-1 (by the way, are they going to ditch the FBS designation now?). Conference expansion, student-athlete stipends and multi-year scholarships are all current developments that are mid-majors unfriendly – and ominously, two of those are being pushed by the NCAA. The trend lines suggest that a separation between the haves and have-nots of the Division may be coming, and coming soon.

Ransdell realizes that there’s little use in debating how big a share of the pie schools like his should be entitled to when there’s a distinct possibility that they may not even have dessert plates in the near future. College football has arrived at a very different place than it was at when Tulane’s Scott Cowen picked a fight back in 2003, even if Cowen isn’t quite ready to concede that. The big win for the mids this time around isn’t going to be about increasing opportunities for TCU and Boise State to crash the postseason party. It’s going to be for the San Jose States of the college football world to be allowed to continue to ride their coattails to pick up a check.

Interesting stat of the day: Missouri was 5-1 last year when allowing fewer than 300 passing yards. Of course, that was accomplished as a member of a conference not exactly synonymous with power running offenses.

New Auburn defensive coordinator Brian Van Gorder’s full head of hair and distinctive mustache has folks talking on the plains. There have been Twitter parodies, and Photoshop interpretations, as well as comparisons to Magnum P.I. and Napoleon Dynamite’s Uncle Rico. Van Gorder doesn’t know what all the fuss is about;” All my years at Georgia and nobody ever said anything about it.”

Although some of this piece is over the top, I can’t say I disagree with this sentiment: “You say the public has wanted a playoff. I say the news media have wanted it most, and if a (playoff) drum gets beat on long enough, the public can end up thinking it’s Mozart.” Not that it matters at this point.

Larry Scott knows why he wants a playoff selection committee: “Listening to some of my colleagues that have served on the men’s basketball committee and realized we have a better chance as a Pac 12 conference to get a fair shake for the fact that we play a nine game conference schedule, the fact that USC and Stanford play Notre Dame, the fact that we play tough out of conference competition, tougher than the SEC or what the Big 12 is doing, and there’s a chance that humans can give us credit for the strength of schedule and credit for what it takes to be the champion of the Pac 12 conference the way that polls and computers cannot.” Settling it on the field, for the win!

The memories, however, will always bring about reverent and affectionate recall — those days when he would arrive at the stadium long before anybody else. “I wanted to hear the band rehearse,” he smiled on a recent summer day. “I do miss the pageantry and excitement of college football. I enjoy all of that on television now, but it is not like being there live. But there comes a time to quit, and I knew it was time.”